Winning His Spurs
by rthstewart
Summary: The High King returns and wins his spurs. The Stone Gryphon Everybody Lives, Nobody Dies AU. Part of the Commoner Royalty series.
1. Return of the King

**Winning His Spurs  
**_Chapter 1, Return of the King, Not all those who wander are lost. The Stone Gryphon Everybody Lives, Nobody Dies AU. Part of the Commoner Royalty series. _

* * *

This is the beginning of the end to the collaborative story begun in my _Under Cover_ and most recently, _Hung Out To Dry_. That story of Eustace and Jill was continued in OldFashioned95's _Bedgraggled As I Am_ and concluded in Starbrow's _Enchantment Vast But Foolish_. (Do check those stories out! They are wonderful and deserve every bit of love they receive!). Here, I pick up with the catalyst for Jill and Eustace's development – the romantic relationship between Peter and Mary Anning Russell which was in turn first told in stories by Anastigmat and Songsmith (links in my Live Journal/Dreamwidth journal).

Or just dive in, Peter/OFC, and very fluffy.

* * *

You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.  
Georgia O'Keefe

ooOOoo

All that is gold does not glitter,  
Not all those who wander are lost;  
The old that is strong does not wither,  
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.  
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,  
A light from the shadows shall spring;  
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,  
The crownless again shall be king._  
_J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Fellowship of the Ring_, _The Lord of the Rings_

ooOOoo

Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, 1955

ooOOoo

The truck rattled and bounced on the rough road, leaving a cloud of red New Mexico dust in its wake. Peter smoothly downshifted and slowly turned down an even narrower road marked by an ox skull perched atop the fence post. Georgia had painted the skull years ago and it had become the symbol of Ghost Ranch.

He and Mary had come here from the Everglades after Eustace had packed up and shipped out. Asim had finally had enough of the _No Colored_ signs all over the American South and returned to England. So it had become just the two of them, more alone than either he or Mary had been in years, and first testing tentatively then enthusiastically embracing their new relationship. Peter felt some twinges of occasional, residual guilt, but no regrets.

He revved the truck up and over the last rise, and across the gully that led up into Box Canyon. Startled deer bounded away and birds scattered. Abiquiu was as different from the Everglades as two places could be. Southern Florida had been green, lush, hot, and teeming with life and noise. Everything squelched, burbled and belched. The bugs were of the most extreme varieties imaginable. Here, it was clean, rough, and endless. Blue sky, red rock, bleached bone, and young, sharp mountains meeting sand.

Peter pulled up to their cottage and stopped the truck. Pack, the Ghost Ranch owner, allowed paleontologists studying the Triassic deposits to stay on the property and had loaned them the cabin for a few months. There were three rooms, a well, a stove, a generator, and it was 50 miles to the nearest grocer. It had been perfect for them and Peter had made some improvements so that by comparison to previous bivouacs, their Ghost Ranch cabin was luxurious. He and Mary had camped all over the Americas and North Africa but now that they were sharing a bed, it was nice to have one, even if very small with a straw ticking mattress.

The Ghost Ranch owner had just donated the whole property to the Presbyterians. It might be the same, but it might not. Mary was ready to move on; she wanted to drive to California and go to a place called Disneyland.

He slid out of the front seat, shook off the dust that would settle over him again within minutes, and gathered up the bundle of mail and packages all tied together that had been waiting for them at the Taos post office.

"I'm in the back!" Mary called. She'd not shouted but it was so quiet, her voice bounced off the canyon walls.

Rather than going around, Peter went through the cabin and stopped to pour out the last of the coffee Mary had left him for him in the kitchen-dining room-sitting room-office. He tucked the pile of mail under his arm and with two more steps he was out the back screen door. The door squeaked open and slammed shut behind, another loud noise in the silence all around them. The scrub, rock and wild lands of the Piedre Lumbre spread out beyond the cottage's back porch.

Mary was bent over the sandbox he had built for her work. She had her hat on and long sleeves and khakis to ward off the early spring chill. She was carefully picking rock from the bone of a Triassic dinosaur skull. He assumed it was _Coelophysis bauri _but Peter couldn't tell a tyrannosaur from an allosaur. He could, as a matter of survival, identify every venomous and poisonous living thing within 200 miles.

Mary came around the table and he was rewarded for the modest effort of the mail run with a kiss. "Thanks for making the trip into town."

"It was time we caught up on the rest of the world and permitted the rest of the world to catch up to us."

Mary relieved him of the packages jammed under his arm and frowned. "No book?"

"From the heft of it, papers, letters, postcards, at least one manuscript, and banking statements, but no book." He smoothed away her disappointed pout with another kiss.

Mary settled on the porch swing - another of his additions - and braced it so he could sit without spilling coffee on the letters. They both put their booted feet up on the bench and a fine patina of dust swirled up and around and even into his cup.

"Were you expecting something?" he asked.

"I'd hoped that new book by Tolkien would be out. It's the last in the series, very hopefully titled _Return of the King,_ and I desperately want to know what happens to Frodo and Sam. Edmund had said he would send it."

Peter had read the first two books and the battles had been well written. While all the traveling about had bored him, he'd very much enjoyed the walking, talking, and fighting Trees.

"Maybe not until Fall. I think there's a paper shortage in England. _Still._" He took a sip of the cold coffee and set the cup down. "I brought two weeks of _New York Times_, so they are less than a month old and the _Time_ and _Life_ magazines might be almost current."

Mary handed him the top half of the stack, all letters and postcards, and began rooting through the newspapers and magazines. Mary also kept the banking statements, though they included his as well as her own as they came from the same excruciatingly clever American bank. The envelope from the journal publishing her and Eustace's latest article was set aside and he assumed she would forward it on to Eustace, maybe unopened and certainly unread. She had been doing that a lot lately. Peter was not sure if it was flagging interest, guilt over the crushed feelings Eustace had long had and Mary had never reciprocated, or a frustrated envy that the academic road that had been so very hard for her had been so easy for Eustace. On the last, he certainly understood the feelings very well. It was so mortifying to fail where others succeeded.

"Not just paper in shortage," Mary said, scanning the international section of the latest _Times_ for news on sighed. "It is not as if we have need of much out here, but…"

"We have the option of doing without; they do not."

"I never thought we'd still be sending Boxes for Britain so long after the war ended," Mary replied bitterly. "It's just not right, Peter. It's not sitting well with me _at all_."

The letters were all from family. The one from his father was on top. Peter held the letter in his hand, weighing it and what it portended.

Mary glanced at the envelope, snatched it from his hands and flipped it on to the work table. "Not that one. It will be put us both in a mood. Even more of a mood once we read the news from home."

"As you command, my lady," Peter replied. He truly wasn't up yet that day to another tirade from Father about his layabout, wastrel existence.

He started sorting through the letters that would be more cheering.

"Churchill might be resigning," Mary murmured, scanning one of the magazines.

"Eden for PM, then?" Peter asked. He slit open the letter from Susan.

"Probably. Followed by a general election so the Conservatives can grab even more for those old, gray, right sort men," Mary said, her tight voice matching his own opinion on the subject and that party. "New Elizabethan age my arse, as your goat swordmaster would have said."

Mary could effortlessly mash together and switch between Narnia and Spare Oom idiom.

"I don't feel we have any right to criticise when we are not even living there," Peter replied.

"It has never stopped us from doing so before," Mary replied. "Besides, it's still our country and the freedom to throw figurative bombs from the backbench _is_ one reason we fought, and won, the war."

He supposed it was still their country, though Peter had not felt worthy to claim it since the war ended. He and Mary had been over it all so many times and the nagging guilt because they had both, for different reasons, embraced selfishness. Once peace was finally declared and he'd been demobbed, Peter had dutifully followed the path that had been set out for him to university. It had been an unmitigated disaster that led to his humiliating withdrawal from Oxford.

Only Mary had really understood and had never judged him as less for failing, maybe because she'd never seen that he'd done anything to earn the impossible regard in which others had held him. Mary also knew what it was to disappoint the expectation of those whose respect meant so very, very much. When Richard died, she fled, and he went with her.

Running away and forgetting had worked, for awhile. But as his siblings had begun to embrace bigger, greater callings, Peter was finding it harder to ignore his own shortcomings. And as Mary found her own healing, Peter had noticed an increasing restlessness with their previously contented exile.

"There is just so very much that is wrong," Mary said with a vehemence strong even for her. "Surely someone should be able to do something other than _more of the bloody same_ and electing over and over the same ogres whose only recommendation is that they've always been there." She paused. "Ogres? Is that the right species or is there another more appropriate?

"Ogre is fine," Peter replied. Mary was always interested in Narnia taxonomy. "Mountain troll is apt as well, though I don't know why Tolkien thought they turned to stone in sunlight."

"Trolls, ogres, _idiots _is what they are! They can't even stop the railway accidents. There've been two more terrible ones." She angrily tossed the _Time_ magazine away and snatched up a stack of postcards. "When I think of the narrow shave you lot had and that was six years ago!"

Peter jostled her shoulder. "For which we all daily thank Aslan's intervention as there could be no other possible explanation for Asim and Edmund _both_ reading the timetables incorrectly."

Mary returned the nudge, roughly affectionate. "And I do. Though I don't think that Cat's been about for a while now; I've seen none of the benevolent feline deity in our local mountain lions."

He shrugged, pushing aside the discomfort of Mary's too-perceptive remark. Lucy always said that Aslan was there if you listened; Peter knew he'd not listened for years. He had thought he'd known what Aslan wanted. He'd obviously been wrong and figured the Lion had just thrown up his paws in despair at his thick-headed, dim-witted, layabout former High King.

He unfolded Susan's letter as Mary drew out a postcard of the London Zoo from her pile.

His sister's Christmas letter was uncharacteristically short – "Sometimes, my dear brother, a picture is worth a thousand words."

"Polly's written," Mary said. "Digs has had a bad winter." She plucked the postcard fretfully. "I hope he's still…"

"Susan makes no mention of it," Peter said, turning over his sister's letter. "If it was dire, she would have written."

"Unless he has died in the meantime," Mary said, sounding very gloomy. With fixed determination, she put Polly's postcard to the side. Peter saw that the writing on the postcard was fainter and more spidery. Age was catching up with Polly as well.

A photograph fluttered out of Susan's envelope and landed in his lap. Peter stared at it, utterly unprepared for the surge of emotion it prompted. The picture was of his brother, sisters, and their spouses in front of the decorated mantle of Susan's house, with a Christmas tree in the background. Lucy was holding Jack, Jr., the nephew Peter had not yet met. Miriam and Susan were both obviously pregnant. He'd not even heard that either was expecting. He would be an uncle, again, twice over, and miss this growth of his family as surely as he had before, in Narnia.

"_What on earth_!" Mary exclaimed, her shocked tone pulling him out of the sudden and _very _unexpected pang of intense melancholy.

"Indeed," Peter replied, handing her Susan's picture, captioned, "Happy Christmas!"

Mary glanced at it. "It's a veritable Yule fertility festival. And in keeping with the spirit…"

She handed him a bright postcard of a white sandy beach, blue-green sea, and gaily painted wooden boats. _Jamaica?_

He turned it over and recognized Jill's flowing handwriting.

_Peter and Mary-_

_By the time this reaches you in New Mexico, Scrubb and I should be back from our honeymoon. We were married last month in Kingston. It was a sudden thing, if you can consider knowing each other for over 10 years sudden. We are deliriously happy and hope to see you some time later in the year. Perhaps we can meet in New York or Boston in the summer? We are on our way to England now to see everyone and share our joy. We feel Aslan's blessing daily._

_With our very best wishes and our deepest thanks,_

_Jill_

Eustace had printed at the bottom. _Thanks so much. Never been happier. I owe you both a bottle of rum and will pay up when we see you. So glad I went. Fantastic herps in Jamaica; great material for articles on island adaptations; saw C. acutus; want to get to Galapagos with Jill—waiting to hear from NG about size of next grant. Probably time to accept that teaching offer._

The mood settled like a wet fog on them both. They sat silently, side by side, rocking in the swing, staring at the pile of good familial tidings and ill news of England. Mary snaked her arm around his waist.

"It is all moving on without us," Mary said. "I don't like that feeling very much."

They watched as two big horned sheep began picking their way along the canyon walls. Their hooves sent rocks skittering down the cliffs and the pings sounded overloud in the silence of their backyard sanctuary. A hawk circled overhead hunting for rabbit or marmot.

It was all perfect and beautiful.

"I need to go back," Peter finally said. It hurt so much to say it, but it was truth. They only spoke truth to one another - it had been part of their friendship for years, ever since Mary had divined the truth of Narnia, believed it, and become painfully reconciled to the fact she'd not been chosen to go down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass with the rest of them.

"Yes," Mary replied softly into his shoulder and pressing the picture of his family into his hands. "You've been selfish for long enough. I've been selfish keeping you here. I'd do it again in a moment. But it's time."

The swing creaked.

"I'm sorry, Mary. I've been so very happy. I'll miss you…"

"Miss me?"

Peter stiffened at the surprisingly sharp tone that had entered her voice. "What?"

Mary pulled away and her eyes turned narrow and dangerous. "Why would you _miss_ me?"

"Of course, I will miss you!" he protested and now felt rising hurt. _After all this time, she wouldn't miss him?_

"Just like that? You are going to sally off back to England?"

"But you just said we'd been selfish, that it was time…"

She poked him in the chest hard enough to hurt with a sand-encrusted finger. "You are just going _to leave_? And leave _me_ behind?"

What was she talking about? "But you don't _want _to go back!"

"Peter, honestly, you are so _thick_ sometimes. You did not even ask! You just assumed."

"You have all this!" He gestured toward her work table. "Why would you go back?"

"Why would I go back?" she repeated. Mary rolled her eyes and rocked back so hard on the swing it set the whole thing swaying. "I would go back _there_ because you would not be _here_."

This was impossible. She could not possibly mean what she was saying. "I would never ask such a thing of you, Mary. Your work, your…" Peter floundered, stammered, and repeated, "Your work."

"Is important and is about things that died a hundred million years ago. But something right next to me is living and is very important, too. More important, even."

He was the only thing living that was next to her – unless maybe lizards under the porch?

"You can't mean that, Mary. You can't mean me..."

"Oh for Aslan's sake, Peter, I love you. Of course I'm going back with you, though if you keep behaving like such an idiot, you'll make me reconsider that decision."

With a look of distaste, Mary reached for the envelope from her publisher. "I'll need to actually read some of my professional correspondence, and, irony of ironies, ask Eustace to call in a favour on my behalf. Perhaps someone will deem me worthy to hire without getting Richard in the deal. Ideally, there will be something around Oxford or maybe even at Experiment House, which is not beastly at all anymore." She waved her arm about. "As for this site, I'll just cover it all up and leave it for Eustace, if he's not too occupied spending grant monies in the Galapagos, or maybe that smart young man from Yale…"

_Wait._

Peter sucked in a steadying breath, tuning out the prattle. "Say again?"

Mary looked up from the thick letter. "That I'll write to Eustace about a position…"

"No, before that."

"That you are an idiot and that if you don't start speaking intelligently, I shall…"

"_No._ Before that. That you…"

The words got stuck, like a bone in the craw.

Mary looked puzzled, tilted her head, and repeated the conversation under breath. "Oh, that I love you? That?"

Peter nodded.

"What about it?"

He cleared his throat. "I believe that is the first time I've heard those words."

She scrunched up her sunburnt forehead. "I shouldn't think so. I'm sure I've said it before to you."

Peter shook his head emphatically. "No, you have not. If you had, I'd remember it."

He had her full attention with his confession. Mary turned on the bench and put her hand to his face, almost putting his eye out with the corner of her letter. "Sorry," Mary muttered and dropped the paper. "I would not have thought my declaration so very remarkable or memorable."

"As it is the first time any woman has ever said it to me, I assure you, Mary, it is." He took her hands in his, kissed them lightly, and received a taste of New Mexico fine grit.

Mary leaned in closer, and her hard edges turned softer. "Really? The first time? After all this time? No one else?"

He shook his head, not wanting the bitter to crowd out what was now very sweet.

"I am sorry for that." Mary blew out an aggravated snort. "I have told you before, but shall say again, I have a very low opinion of those other women who only wanted a crown, a country, or chocolate and stockings."

"I don't have any of those things, Mary, not anymore. I don't have anything to offer you. I'm just a vagabond living off the inheritance of a generous man who we both loved very much."

"Oh, Peter, you break my heart when you talk that way." She gently traced his face with her dirty fingers and her expression was soft.

"You still don't see that it's not _things _that make you deserving of love? I do not need anything I cannot provide myself. All I ever wanted is your good self, nothing more. Nothing less. And that you have given me. Always given me."

Blushing, he ducked his head under the warm regard, the love he could now see and name.

"That is the most generous thing anyone has ever said to me. I love you, too. Very much and for a very long time, I think." He looked around, seeing the work table, her notebook, the dozens of bone fragments, the precious fossils, and, always, Richard's final diary that had recorded mysteries waiting to be proven. Things that had been common Narnian understanding, such as the honey bee dancing, had garnered a Nobel Prize here. Some of this could be possibly continued in England, but not all of it.

"Mary, please think about this. Do you really want to go back, to all those memories after avoiding them for so long?"

Her eyes darted to the table and stopped to rest on Richard's journal. "You call me generous, Peter, but you are more so, to never once criticise that I mourned Richard for longer even than we were married."

_Mourned. As in, in the past? Was Mary's mourning finally complete? _

"The problem with loving dead things is that they don't love back. I think it turned me hollow and then you filled that empty space. I gave you love, yes, but you gave me a life and love besides."

Her eyes returned to his and Peter felt a shadow lift, as if Richard's silent ghost was, at last, no longer between them.

"We both loved Richard, and he loved both of us," Peter said. He squeezed her hands and pushed Mary's hat aside to kiss her forehead.

"And more than that, Richard loved England, Peter. He would not want us to abandon her forever or each other, now that we are finally together. That's not honouring his gifts to us."

"Are you sure, though?" He had been sensing her rising discontent but never thought it so strong. Peter could scarce believe that his directionless self and struggling England could combine to create a pull so strong Mary would leave her rocks and reptiles.

"Peter, please don't make me explain it." Unexpectedly, her eyes reddened. "You, of all people, know how soul-destroying it can be... to..."

_To disappoint those you loved. To fail where you had so wished to succeed. In marriage. In love. In studies. In career._

Mary wiped her nose on her shoulder and yanked her hands away from his. She thrust her fingers awkwardly into her pockets for a foil-wrapped candy, fumbled about and popped the sweet into her mouth; the crunch sound was louder than the squeak of the swing in the desert stillness. In America, Mary had replaced humbugs and Cadbury Roses with LifeSavers and Hershey Kisses.

Their kiss tasted of her cherry LifeSaver.

"I understand, Mary. Perhaps together we shall succeed where individually we have not."

She nodded and earnestly chewed another candy, pineapple. When she spoke again, her brisk tone had returned. "It's time for the King to return to England. Just like Tolkien's book."

_King? _

"Mary, I'm not a King, not anymore."

He got a hard shove. "Of course you are. England, Narnia, it's all one and the same. Isn't that what you really learned from Richard?"

"Well, yes, I suppose." Peter recalled now with chagrin how revelatory it had seemed to find Narnia in this world and to not sooner comprehend the variety of Aslan's creation. "But it was not only Richard. You were very much part of that discovery, too."

"That's just because I look like a Dryad." She shrugged, offhandedly dismissive in a way he did not like to see.

He again took her hands in his. "It is nothing so superficial as that. Since we met, a day has not gone by that I was not bettered by you and those around you."

"I do have a way of collecting interesting persons and things," Mary said, sounding smug. "Though put that way makes you seem very much like a Limoges box in a curio cabinet."

"You have it backwards, perhaps. As you said to me, so I say to you. You have value and talent, too, Mary, and even if your work has not been as fruitful as you would wish, please don't give it up on a ..."

Mary's growl could be as chilling as that of the local mountain lions.

"If you say this is a mere whim, I shall kick you." Mary's boots were steel-toed. It hurt when she kicked him.

"_Hasty_ then," Peter amended quickly. "You shouldn't be hasty about..."

"Do stop quoting Treebeard, Peter. Recall that if the Ents had been a little more hasty, they might not have lost their wives. That's _not _going to happen to us."

_Us. Wives._

_Wife?_

Peter glanced down again at the picture of his siblings and their spouses. The world was spinning very fast. "The Entwives. Right," he muttered.

She nodded her head with a look of _and that's that_ satisfaction he had learned to regard warily.

"Precisely! Enough with the exile. It's time to go back. We'll need to get married first."

"_Married?"_

The world went from spinning fast to rocking completely off its axis.

She grabbed Jill's postcard and jabbed it in the direction of Susan's photograph. "Yes! _Of course _we must be married. You just said that we might succeed together where we failed individually. This is the perfect opportunity. Eustace and Jill are managing it. And your siblings, too. We can't let them all get the upper hand in this. Some children, too. We'll need to get started on that straight away."

_Yes, right then. Absolutely._

Mary stood up too quickly and set the swing swaying wildly. Peter flailed about to keep from pitching onto the ground. "Are we going somewhere?" He had a sudden, celebratory idea that involved the straw pallet mattress and getting started on the children.

"Passports. We'll drive into town. If we get there before the cocktail hour, the padre at the pueblo church in Abiquiu should still be sober. We can get a licence at the courthouse."

"But..."

"I love you, Peter Pevsnee, so let's get married, and get this right, you and I, and do something about those idiots running our country."

"Pevensie," he repeated. "If you are going to take my name, you should get _it_ right."

Mary held out her hand and firmly drew him out of the swing. "I know your name perfectly well, Peter Pevensie, and I always have."

She started pulling him into the house. Peter recognized the full on head of steam and he could either get in her way (not recommended) or get on board (much preferable).

"We can get packed up tonight," Peter said to her back as Mary shoved her way into the cottage. "Then drive to Albuquerque and make the arrangements. We could be back in England within a week."

"Los Angeles," Mary said, already rooting through her satchel for her passport.

Her orienteering was usually better than that. "Isn't Los Angeles in the wrong direction?"

"Not if you go to Disneyland first."

* * *

To follow, Chapter 2, the conclusion, _Thus Should A Knight Rule Himself_

I had vowed I would never attempt Mary and Peter again. However, OldfashionedGirl95 and Starbrow, pushed ahead with their Jill and Eustace story and urged me to try again. Without them, neither this, nor anything else, would have been written.

Chapter 2, near done, takes place 50 years ahead. I'm struggling a bit with the British honours system so if you have some expertise there, I could use an assist.

A lot happened in 1955. Disneyland opened; _Return of the King_ was published; Arthur Pack sold Ghost Ranch to the Presbyterians; Churchill resigned as Prime Minister in April. Churchill was succeeded by Anthony Eden, who called a general election in May and significantly increased the Conservative majority. American painter Georgia O'Keefe lived in the Ghost Ranch area and painted the ox skull logo of Ghost Ranch.

Thank you for reading.


	2. Thus Should A Knight Rule Himself

**Winning His Spurs**  
Chapter 2, Thus Should A Knight Rule Himself

* * *

You who long for the Knightly Order,  
It is fitting you should lead a new life;  
Devoutly keeping watch in prayer,  
Fleeing from sin, pride and villainy;  
The Church defending,  
The Widows and Orphans succouring.  
Be bold and protect the people,  
Be loyal and valiant, taking nothing from others.  
Thus should a Knight rule himself.

He should be humble of heart and always work,  
And follow Deeds of Chivalry;  
Be loyal in war and travel greatly;  
He should frequent tourneys and joust for his Lady Love;  
He must keep honor with all,  
So that he cannot be held to blame.  
No cowardice should be found in his doings,  
Above all, he should uphold the weak,  
Thus should a Knight rule himself.

— Eustache Deschamps

ooOOoo

"And the last card?" Susan asked.

"The Knight of Pentacles," Agnes replied.

"Not King?" Susan mused. _So in addition to a second adolescence, Peter was again winning his spurs. If not slaying Maugrim, what would it be this time?  
_

Agnes shrugged. "That is to come, to be sure, for with the Knight of Pentacles, patience brings its own rewards. First he must become the Knight, dedicated, loyal, doggedly pursuing the tasks set for him, honoring his commitments to the bitter end, strong in character, word, body, and mind."

"Might that be a bit dull?" Susan smiled, thinking of Peter toiling away with the Professor at Oxford.

"A lack of imagination, perhaps," Agnes said, "but when the Knight of Pentacles acts, it will be decisive and forceful."

From _The Queen Susan in Tashbaan_, Chapter 6.

* * *

Oxford, 1992

Usually Mary had no occasion to carp for Russell House was a decently-sized manor home. There were three floors, attics, cellars, bedrooms for anyone who wanted one, and they'd only had waits for the bathrooms when the children - and eventually grandchildren - reached that intolerable age where they spent hours doing Lion's knew what in there and used up all the hot water.

The house, though, had become far too cramped for the formidable personalities who were now occupying it. Their nearest and dearest were in the vicinity regardless because they'd purchased tables for the Oxfam 50th anniversary fundraiser. Most of the family in the UK was going, although the precise attendee list required a spreadsheet that changed on the hour. (Mary adored Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software - it was vastly superior to the task lists that Kwong Lee used to maintain in the kitchen years ago).

And this was before they all began watching the post with an eye as avid as a hound admiring roasting chicken or a viper waiting for a rodent to pop out of a hole. Amidst the revolving door and the house seeming more as train station than residence in anticipation of the letter that might (or, _damn that Lion _not) come, Edmund and Susan had both invented reasons to stay a few nights and Lucy exerted a powerful influence even when only ringing constantly. The combined family's children and grandchildren kept popping in and out, and phoning when Lucy wasn't. Mary's last nerve had been trod upon and Peter had taken to bellowing at anyone who was breathing too loudly.

After breakfast, Edmund hustled Peter out of doors and they'd taken the horses and gone for a ride – hopefully all the way to the Forest of Dean.

The fourth time Lucy phoned, Mary took the call herself. "No, the post isn't here yet. We'll call you when..."

"That wasn't why I was ringing. Mary, you need to go into the wood," Lucy said. "Aslan is on the move."

Mary hung up the phone, threw on a coat against the autumn chill, and stalked outside.

The urban and rural development and re-development that had taken over so many places hadn't yet encroached too much around Russell House. The lane in front was properly paved but still barely wide enough for two smallish cars to pass each other. There was a stoplight and proper roads to get them to the A44. Neighbors were closer than they used to be. The beavers had long since been relocated to Scotland. It had been years since Mary had seen a white-silver stag who heralded the coming of the King. Flemish Giant Rabbits no longer danced on the moon-lit lawns. But the old woods of beech, oak, and wild cherry still flourished on the property. The silver birch tree that Peter said was her tree was still there, gamely hanging on even though they weren't long-lived. There were stoats, moles, and voles, perching birds in the trees, and wading birds in the pond.

And there were cats. A cat. _The Cat_. Everyone always capitalized it. Lucy was right. All you had to do was ask, and _really, really _mean it, and you could be sure that _arrogant prat of a Cat_ would show himself, one way or another.

Why, in the name of the Egyptian, Greek, Hindu and Norse pantheon had she married into a family whose devotionals centered on the one creature she was most ambivalent toward? Only things that sucked blood had less attraction to her than _Felis catus_. Aslan took delight in it, to be sure. She was positive he'd targeted her – she'd married his High King no less! –because Aslan _knew_ the purring, fur, and infernal cat-superiority would _always_ get her back up.

No doubt about it. Aslan and his other slinky avatars had been skulking in and out of her life her entire life. He'd known her, called her, yet never opened His door so she could walk into Narnia, the Wood Between the Worlds, or anywhere else. Mary would never forgive Aslan for that deliberate snub. The closest she'd ever come to Wonderland was the attraction at Disney World.

_Insufferable._

She drew her Burberry tighter and tromped over the damp leaves, feeling the arthritis in her knees and the pressure in her chest, and very much in a mood.

In the depth of the wood, Mary sensed the Oxford autumn cold turn to golden warmth. She stopped and looked up into the branches of the slender beech, feeling very much like Alice. "If you smile, will all fade but the grin?"

"No," the Cat replied from his branch. "I never fade."

"Being metaphorically didactic again?" Mary replied.

"When you do finally come to my door, Mary, there is someone with whom you will get on very well," the Cat said.

Mary knew of whom he was speaking. She'd heard the stories. "Morgan and I shall both get candlesticks and regularly cosh you with them for being such a driving and manipulative bastard to the men we love."

The Cat flicked his tail, faded to a grin, and then re-appeared.

"And a show-off," Mary said, laughing in spite of herself. "But truly, if this is what you do to your chosen Kings and Queens whom you love so well, I'd really hate to be your enemy."

"You were calling for me, Mary. If you wish only to criticise, I shall be on my way. And if you were that concerned about the contents of the post, you should have bespoken me much sooner."

She exhaled an aggravated huff. He was right about that. It _was _too late, save miraculous intervention. But the Lion who made a Mouse's tail grow back, summoned magical feasts, and conjured doorways out of thin air could manage altering a letter. Besides, Aslan knew perfectly well how to work his will, when he bothered to exert himself. In that regard, Mary thought Aslan too much like the typical, male _Panthera leo_, who let everyone else do his dirty work. Grudgingly, Mary could concede that Aslan wasn't the least sexist - he drove his Queens as hard as the Kings.

Mary squared her shoulders and shook a finger at him. "Peter has not asked for anything, of you or anyone else. But he wants this. This one thing, it's not a small thing, I know, but it's important. He's earned it, damn it."

The Cat watched her scolding finger through slitted eyes. "Why do you all try to argue with me?"

"It is Miriam who argues with you! Not me!" Miriam was a Talmudic scholar and married to Edmund, so that whole side of the family was tediously argumentative.

"You try to dictate to me. And bargain. Do you think me a merchant?"

"I'm his advocate! Peter has been doing your work for nearly 40 years. This is _the third time _he's helped rebuild a country. He's entitled to the recognition!"

"Peter is my High King. He won his spurs at my camp and is a Knight of my Order. He shall always be so."

"I meant _here_." Her voice hiked with irritation and the cold burned in her chest. "And don't you dare quote me about prophets being rejected in their own country, either."

"Do I hear a threat?"

"You do," Mary told the insufferably smug Cat. "If that letter does not come today, I shall personally lead a charge to convert the whole family."

"To what?"

"Worship of canines. Or bovines. Perhaps _G. gallus._"

The Cat blinked. "Chickens? You would replace me with chickens?"

"The dogs would be delighted. We'll worship and eat them. Though, that would be a problem given the number of people in the family who don't eat meat. Vegetables, perhaps. We'll begin worshiping legumes. Dogs are omnivores, too."

Mary was pleased to draw a low growl. The Cat leaned forward on the branch and swatted her head with his tail. It was a very thick and heavy tail.

"I believe the post has arrived," the Cat said.

Mary heard the horn blowing, turned, and hurried back to the house, as fast as her heart allowed.

ooOOoo

_Exclusive to The Sun_  
31 December 1992

The New Year's Honours were released today. The Prime Minister's office is purportedly considering a new system that more closely awards merit rather than rank. This can only lead us to wonder how far our hallowed honours may sink. It is a pitiful day when honours and awards are dished out like day-old, flaccid chips to a verger, a lighthouse keeper, and a launderer. Even a cannibal – the actor who played Hannibal Lector – will henceforth be titled _Sir_.

How low can it go?

Very.

As we peruse the list of Knights Bachelor, we are consoled with the inclusion of many familiar names from the Thatcher government this Paper has supported. Personages on the relevant awarding committees still hold to some modicum of respectability and judgment.

And then we come to the "P's" and the name we have dreaded and loathed for nigh on 30 years is finally here. Henceforth, he shall be Sir Peter Pevensie. We'll hold our noses and hope the stench passes. It will take some time as there are more Pevensies than hoodlums at a football match.

Kinnock lost in April so the lights stayed on in Britain. We wish they'd gone out on Mr. Pevensie. Beatniks, Sputnik, and hippies are gone, yet Mr. Pevensie persists as mold in a poorly ventilated cellar that no amount of cleansing can eradicate.

He failed at school and failed in his career, to the extent he ever had one beyond living large on the largesse of others. Mr. Pevensie finally found work in the one thing a dull man with an empty head could be qualified to do and became MP to Oxford-Cowley. And there he stuck to the backbench, like chewed gum on an old shoe. Redrawing of constituency lines _finally_ got him out of Oxford-Cowley. We understand that Mr. Pevensie and his mob may try to capitalise upon his odious family's connections to Liverpool and carpetbag his way into that constituency.

We have known for years this dark day would come. It is only by virtue of gentlemen with sense and principles that it has been avoided for so long. Certainly we were all screwed by the Cabinet on Black Wednesday; this screw is deeper, though, and really hurts. It smacks of betrayal by those public servants to whom we have given our trust.

To express our displeasure, we shall borrow from the hobby-masquerading-as-intellectual-rigour of Mr. Pevensie's loathsomely pernicious wife. Mr. Pevensie is a dinosaur whose ridiculous, fiscally irresponsible archaic notions of public good would have bankrupted Britain thrice over. For decades, Mr. Pevensie has put forth the same tired and discredited socialist policies that rob the hardworking to fund the undeserving. Undeterred, Mr. Pevensie and his scrum of toady relations have been pandering for his knighthood like a rent boy at Carnival.

As to whither the sources for these well-funded campaigns, whilst we are never ones to beat the dead horse, it is certainly appropriate to raise again the scandal that has long surrounded Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie. Mr. Pevensie's association with the lady now his wife began in 1942 at the tender age of sixteen. The lady's husband at the time, the late and greatly esteemed Professor Richard Russell, agreed to coach Mr. Pevensie through his exams. Though the tutoring by this great mind was wasted on the dull-witted Mr. Pevensie, the effort was not wholly without benefit. Mr. Pevensie became Professor Russell's heir, thus taking a large percentage of the man's fortune, his wife, and, possibly, Professor Russell's life as well. In what would become a pattern of Pevensie conduct, for the report of Professor's Russell's supposed natural passing, we have but the word of the lady who would become Mr. Pevensie's wife, the nurse, a Jewess who would marry Mr. Pevensie's brother, and a sister, the Communist agitator and criminal, Lucy Pevensie Clark.

We've heard it whispered in the little committee rooms of Whitehall that a charge of extortion would not be amiss in the matter of the not-so-Right Honourable Sir Edmund Pevensie's unrelenting campaign to wheedle a Knighthood for his brother. Ironic indeed that a man sworn to uphold the rule of law is so very much a law unto himself. Why is it that the not-so-Right Honourable Pevensie was for so long been without a Knighthood of his own, though he has sat upon the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for years? Might it be because in his insufferable arrogance he refused the honour, citing the Government's administration of the Chagoss Islands but in fact held his own graceless acceptance of a knighthood hostage until he could extract one for his brother?

We are optimistic that this is the last time we will have to comment upon a Pevensie's bought and paid for honour. Even with her not-so-Right Honourable brother putting the legal fix in, we are sanguine that arrest records in five countries assure that Mrs. Clark will never see her name printed in the _Gazette_.

To be sure, we make and hear no complaint of the other sister of Mr. Pevensie, Dame Commander Susan Pevensie Tebbitt Walker. We would not expect otherwise for it is well understood that those who cross Dame Walker lose the ability to speak their complaint.

We are stoic. We are resigned. With this final _Gazette_ posting, may this wretched family of self-styled "Commoner Royalty" finally fade into well-deserved obscurity. Common indeed. We'll use today's _Gazette_ to line the cat box.

ooOOoo

Susan and Robert took charge of their dress for the day of Peter's Investiture. It was a dead heat as to who was the most recalcitrant - wrangling Edmund into a properly tailored suit or prevailing upon Lucy to wear a hat.

Maybe it was age, perhaps it was pride, but Mary wanted nothing to diminish Peter's long overdue recognition. So, Mary let herself be managed and, even though not actually attending the ceremony, she submitted patiently to Susan's impeccable taste, and did not make any jokes about lipstick and stockings.

She would be _Lady_ now, after all, which made her chortle over the irony, but not too loudly. Miriam felt miffed that Edmund had only accepted the honour under vociferous protest - something _the Sun_ - _and that rag could just go hang_ - had gotten right. Not-so-Right Honourable was fine for Edmund, but Miriam had wanted something for herself and an occasion to dust off her fascinators.

"Are you certain?" Peter had asked the question a dozen times over as he stared in disbelief at the very clear, beautifully engraved invitation from the Central Chancery at St. James' Palace. When their Oxford postman had delivered the thick, heavy letter, he'd been thoroughly impressed though not at all surprised - he'd been joining the petition for Peter's knighthood for years.

It had taken Peter and the War to teach her hard lessons about selflessness. Mary would not waver in her decision. "Yes," she told him. And then said it _again. And again. _

"Truly, Mary, you must go in my place," Lucy had insisted. "Susan will make me wear a pretty suit, hat, and shoes with heels. It's all such a bother." Her voice had risen quite convincingly.

Mary had repeated "_No_," to Lucy and then finally resorted to yelling at her to just leave the matter be. Lucy was not skilled in emotional manipulation as Peter was, but she did have a talent for wearing down her opposition.

"She's complaining," Jack had confided. "But Lu really does want to go. You're making the right decision. Don't let them talk you out of it."

The Pevensies were all very adept at getting their way, come to think. Mary knew precisely from which divine incarnation they had acquired the facility.

"It's all very well for you to be self-sacrificing, Mary," Miriam had said while making disapproving noises and moving the cold stethoscope across Mary's chest. "But nothing was going to stop me from attending Edmund's Investiture and I don't care that I bumped Lucy from the roster. I wanted to wear my blue hat."

"And you wanted to march into the press corps, shove your branded arm at that bloody _Sun _reporter, and demand he call you _Lady _Pevensie."

Miriam had laughed. "And he did! I thought he was going to bite off his own tongue!"

Susan had made a single, gracefully and sincerely worded offer. "I was there the first time, Mary. I have been to the Investiture before. Would you reconsider?"

Mary's decline had been equally gracious - a skill she had learned very well as a politician's wife.

Edmund was the only one who had not offered. Not minding, but curious, Mary asked Miriam why she'd not have to fend off Edmund's attempts to surrender his place to her.

Miriam became uncharacteristically vague and eventually muttered, "It's a vestige of Narnia, Mary. Biblical plagues won't keep Edmund from the ceremony, I assure you, so don't look to him for the polite but utterly insincere offer."

That did not answer at all but Miriam was so oddly quiet about it, Mary did not press her. It did not matter, regardless. The Chancery rules specified that Peter, as a recipient of a New Year's Honour, was permitted three guests at the Investiture ceremony. And so, his brother and sisters would accompany him. There was a nice symmetry to that, Mary thought. They had been the Four in Narnia, Kings, Queens and Knights of that realm. Some 50 years later, the Four would again see their High King knighted, at Buckingham Palace.

ooOOoo

The day went off with the deft and graceful precision at which the English so excelled. The spring weather was lovely and everyone well-behaved. There was a pavilion for family and friends of those receiving honours who could not attend the Investiture. Mary caught a glimpse of Anthony Hopkins and he was shorter than she'd expected. There was a lot of press and Robert, the savviest of them with media enquiries, made the polite statements on the family's behalf. Jack and Miriam shot laser beam glares at _the Sun _reporter. Jack was carrying Lucy's trainers.

The children had decided amongst themselves to leave the London festivities to the elder generation and were managing the catered reception at Russell House. Mary hoped the house that was still standing after 200 years and the Blitz would survive a Pevensie-planned party of such special magnificence, as a Baggins would have said.

Eventually, the honourees emerged from the Palace and trooped down the carpeted steps. Mary didn't see Peter in the crush until suddenly he was there, right next to her, brother and sisters flanking. They were all beaming, with red eyes and sniffing noses.

Peter was so very happy; not since the day Emma had been born, and John a year later, had he been so infused with joy. Mary threw her arms around his neck, kissed him soundly, and ignored the clicks of all the cameras and the smarmy reporters circling like sharks in the water. There would a vile photograph in the tabloids but she did not care. "You are my Knight in shining armor, Sir Peter Pevsnee!"

ooOOoo

From the Palace, the eight of them walked across Green Park to Le Caprice for a late lunch. They were in no rush for Susan had made the reservations and allocated plenty of time, correctly anticipating that they would be stopped every few yards on the walk for pictures and handshakes. They made for a striking set and the British recognized the family's faces and the medals and ribbons worn for the day. Many were surprised that the Pevensies were _not _the ugly Dorian Grays splattered across the _Sun's _pages. Many American and European tourists recognized Peter from news programmes and Question Time coverage, most memorably during the fiery Thatcher years. Lucy also produced that vague _Isn't she famous_ _from somewhere_ impression. Lucy became more recognizable once she changed from heels to her trainers; her hat would be off by the time they reached Piccadilly.

Mary accepted the congratulations for her own part, enjoying _Lady Pevensie _more than she had anticipated.

"It is nice, isn't it?" Miriam said as they walked arm and arm across Green Park.

Edmund had been walking next to Peter. As yet another well-wisher stopped Peter, Edmund peeled off and wandered down a side path. He was hunched over and ruining his suit by shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Is he alright?" Mary asked. "He seems..."

"He's fine," Miriam replied shortly with a glance at Lucy and Susan who were now busily conferring in whispers. She slipped her arm out of Mary's own. "It's just a very emotional day."

And with that ambiguous statement, Miriam followed her husband. She cut off Susan and Lucy who were now also bearing down on Edmund's location. Miriam ordered them back with a peremptory wave of her arm. "Oi! Leave it, would you? We'll meet you at the restaurant."

"Good for Miriam," Jack muttered next to her.

"Indeed," Mary replied.

Being a spouse of a Pevensie meant you married into the whole family. Usually, personal boundaries were respected. Sometimes, though, it seemed that there were three other people with you in the bed and it could get crowded. With things like the Investiture that were so closely tied to Narnia memory, Mary willingly stepped aside to let the Four be Four, alone, again. She laid the blame for her own exclusion on Aslan, not them.

"Any idea why everyone is walking on eggshells as if Ed is an explosive waiting to go off?"

Jack was always _so _expressive, if not always completely accurate.

"No, other than the obvious," Mary replied.

He nodded and shifted Lucy's high heeled shoes to his other hand. "Whatever has them all so edgy, you can bet it's got pawprints all over it."

_Meddlesome Cat._

"Jack, what if I were to lead a new crusade? Would you join up?"

Her brother-in law laughed, tossed one of Lucy's shoes into the air, and caught it one-handed. "This is your religious movement to convert us all to vegetable worship?"

"Yes! Legumes! I thought legumes would be worthy of exalted praise, especially with all the vegetarians."

"I don't like peas. Otherwise, yes, sign me up."

ooOOoo

There were no peas on the Le Caprice luncheon menu. Susan and Robert had selected the foods and the wines. It was all, therefore, perfect, delicious, and civilized. There were toasts and jokes; Eustace had composed a poem for the occasion, which Lucy read very solemnly. They managed to all get through three stanzas but the word _hip _unfortunately rhymed with _ship _and they all were laughing too hard to even hear Lucy's gasping attempt to get out the last verse.

Once the attentive staff set out the _crème brûlée_ and left the private room, Edmund rose from his seat, champagne flute in hand. Peter shifted his chair so he was sitting closer to his brother.

Everyone immediately quieted.

"I have waited a very long time to see this, my brother and High King," Edmund said solemnly. "Over 50 years ago, the day Aslan knighted you and named you _Wolfsbane_, I was not present."

_Wait. What? _

A grim hush settled around the table.

_Edmund hadn't been there when Aslan knighted Peter? But come to think, how ...? _Mary elbowed her questions aside for later as Edmund continued to speak.

"Due to no one's fault but my own, I was tied up at the time," Edmund said. Mary had the uncomfortable impression that Edmund was not speaking metaphorically. She glanced at Susan and Lucy who both looked pinched and worried. Peter reached across the divide and put a hand on his brother's arm.

But, with a glance at Miriam, who grinned, nodded, and gave him an enthusiastic _thumb's up_, Edmund smiled. It was a little wan and with effort but genuine. "It is with great joy and pride that I can now name my brother as both High King Peter, Knight of the Order of the Lion, and as Sir Peter Pevensie, Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire."

The tension snapped. They all toasted with exclamations of _Here Here!_ and _Sir Peter! _She clinked glasses with Susan and Lucy who were both crying again. Mary was more confused than before.

_Was that what this was all about?_ She knew the story: Peter, a bare fourteen years old, slew the Wolf, Maugrim, and won his spurs. That knighting had occurred during their first trip to Narnia, in the first days of their adventure. Come to think of it, she knew all about Father Christmas, breakfast with the Beavers and the Gifts. Had she ever heard what Edmund's gift was? It sounded as though something dire had kept Edmund from attending Peter's first knighting?

Though, if this were the case, it truly must also be ridiculous. Whatever had them, as Jack said, walking on eggshells dated from when Edmund had been _eleven years old_!

Miriam jumped up from her seat to soundly kiss Edmund - unusual because they were typically not very demonstrative in public. Peter, Susan, and Lucy had all risen from their places to hug and kiss their brother.

Mary managed to do better than Jack; her brother-in-law rolled his eyes and mouthed the word _vegetables_.

Next to her, in a tactful undertone, Robert whispered, "Whatever ancient history is responsible for marring what should be joyful day, surely a feline is at its root." He leaned over to refill her champagne flute. "Mary, if you do lead a crusade to convert us all to worship of legumes, consider me your first acolyte."

"She got me first," Jack said, holding out his own glass. "I'm the Cardinal of Not Peas."

Robert raised his glass to them. "I hereby dub me Bishop of Beans."

ooOOoo

Peter was, embarrassed to say, feeling the effects of the very fine, aged Scotch, a collective gift from the barkeeps in Cowley. Russell House, _their _house, was full of people, colleagues, friends, constituents, other Members, and not a few enemies who were pleasant to his face and venomous behind his back. The knives were figurative though no less painful when slipped between the ribs to nick the heart. He let Susan deal with them. His whole family was there and given that they were spread over five continents, that was no easy feat.

He took another sip of the Scotch, shook some more hands, accepted some kisses and wiped off the lipstick before Mary saw, and repeated over and over as a grateful mantra, "_Thank you Aslan_, _for this gift._"

It was also embarrassing to recollect all the different ways that he had envisioned the Investiture and the celebrations afterwards. So often, when you dreamt of things for years and years, the actual reality, when and if it finally came, disappointed. Such was not the case here. His Queen, their Queen, was gracious; the weight of her father's sword felt very like the one that had struck him on the shoulders over fifty years ago as he knelt before Aslan in the new spring grass of Narnia.

He had been so young then - so very, impossibly young. Lucy and Susan had been by his side; Edmund had not...

_So long ago_

The knighthood he had won in Narnia seemed, in hindsight, a gift given in recognition of what had followed as they laboured to rebuild their beleaguered, adopted country. The respect afforded the High King of Narnia had followed him on their return, but it been earned there, not here. While failure was soul-destroying, as Mary would say, he also knew from experience that undeserved regard was little better. This, second, knighthood had come only after years of hard work and on the initiative and lobbying of his constituents. He'd actually done something to deserve the acclaim before receiving it. He was content.

Peter snagged some canapés from a passing tray. They were crunchy, green, and so not ideal with the Scotch but he didn't feel like searching up something else among the milling guests and servitors. The NPGs - Next Pevensie Generation - as their children, nieces, and nephews, and _their _children collectively called themselves - had organized the party jointly. Susan had reported there had _only _been five arguments, three crying jags, two broken cups, and one door slammed off its hinges. With so many eclectic tastes and (ardently held) opinions represented amongst the NPGs, some conflict was inevitable. The drink and food at the reception reflected compromise more than a well-thought, coordinated menu.

Hearty handshakes and kissing were thirsty work. Peter decided to avoid the line in the ballroom where the bartender was pulling pints and mixing drinks. He could still remember when the ballroom had been filled with plaster blocks from the Natural History Museum. For a refill, he could go upstairs to the drawing room, but there would be people there and, if he poured himself a glass from his private cache, he'd have to share it. He kept a decent bottle in the kitchen and decided he would sneak another glass from that secret stash.

Weaving his way through the crush of mostly well-wishers, he tripped over the dogs drooling over the caterers' offerings; their Labradors and Hounds were walking dustbins. Peter shook the hands of the serving staff who were arranging trays and washing dishes in the kitchen. At one time, he supposed he would have compared the bustling, scents, and banging pots to a grand occasion at Cair Paravel; but the family had been hosting fundraisers, meetings, and fêtes at Russell House for far longer than he'd lived in Narnia. There was less animal hair and fewer feathers in the food and modern refrigeration, the microwave oven, and indoor plumbing were things of wonder.

The bottle was in the walk-in pantry, so he helped himself and then freed Bacchus from the cupboards where the shorthair cat had managed to wedge his head in a biscuit tin and shut the door on himself. That cat was even more of a glutton than Silenus, their sway-backed donkey. Properly fortified, Peter re-emerged and then, glass in one hand, held the back door open for one of the caterers who was moving trays of vegetables from the big grill set up in the back yard. He helped himself to a meaty mushroom, feeling like a Hobbit who was a guest in his own comfortable hole.

Beyond the grills and warming ovens set up in the back alongside the catering lorry, he saw Edmund loitering about between the paths that led into the wood and beyond to the pond. Peter took a glass of wine the servitor was intending to deliver to someone else - as guest of honour, he was in his rights to do so.

Edmund waved as Peter approached. "Hullo, Sir Peter Pevensie."

He was probably never going to tire of hearing that. "Hullo, Right Honourable Edmund Pevensie." His brother accepted the offered glass of wine. "Too much of a crush inside?"

"Yes, just taking a breather." Edmund sipped the wine and Peter could see the subtle easing of the tension in his face and shoulders as he let out a sigh. "Thank you."

It had always been a difference between them, eventually explained, Mary had insisted, by Myers-Briggs personality profiles and theories of multiple intelligences. Edmund usually would be drained by the same social engagement Peter found exhilarating. And then there had also been what occasioned the last two days and the attendant, and complex, memories of his first knighting.

"How are you?" Peter asked. He tried to keep his tone neutral, but he should have known better than to even make the attempt.

Edmund's eyes narrowed over his wine glass. "Surely I have mentioned how much I dislike you three assuming that my latent introverted tendencies and high state of anticipation over your Investiture somehow mask poor psychological coping skills and unresolved PTSD?"

"You are the one who, given the circumstances, made the very off-colour toast about being tied up at my last knighting," Peter reminded him.

"I thought I was being terribly clever," his brother replied. "Have you not heard how the NPGs describe Uncle Edmund?"

"Moody? Cranky? Married to a Jewish saint? In need of significant management to simply get out the door each day?" They slipped easily into the comfortable, jesting and jocular rhythm that spanned worlds, decades, and lives.

"I decline to respond to those accusations on grounds of possible self-incrimination."

"You are turning legalistic on me, not-so-Right Honourable _Sir_." Edmund liked _Sir _here no more than he had liked _Sire _in Narnia. "But if not cantankerous, argumentative, or royal lazy arse, what _do _our nearest and dearest Next Gen call you?"

"The NPGs say that Uncle Edmund is _snarky_."

Peter laughed and raised his glass in tribute. "Very fitting. And this is a colloquialism I actually understand. Does your picture appear next to the entry in the dictionary of an adjective denoting a combination of sarcasm, sly humour, and cynicism?"

"And here I would have thought it too subtle for you blunt instrument political sorts." Edmund raised his own glass. "Though in truth, the expression is best accompanied by an eyeroll of adolescent superiority and ennui."

They both laughed; Peter was convinced he'd never been as dreadful an adolescent as his own offspring and grandchildren had been and he had endured the misery _twice_. Edmund leaned against a tree and began shedding the bark with his free hand. Peter recognized the signs, sipped his drink, and waited. Eventually, the birdsong, the hum of passing cars on the road, and the din of merriment in the house did its work.

"Peter, I've anticipated your knighting as much as you have; in some respects, perhaps more because I did not witness it the first time. That high state of excitement augmented by the celebratory champagne may have loosened my tongue to the point of carelessness." Edmund looked up and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "I do apologize for my snark if it marred your day. That was not my intent. I suppose I still will make light of heavy things."

Peter opened his arms wide and hugged his brother. So much had changed over their years and lives, but the feeling of this embrace was just as it had been the day of his knighting and Edmund's rescue, and every day since.

"If you can find humour in it, I can as well, Edmund." He didn't understand it, but Peter didn't have to and Edmund owed him no explanation. His brother had walked a complex path of compassionate forgiveness for fifty years and while Aslan's grace shined most obviously in Lucy, in Edmund it was the most fully internalised.

Lest it become too sentimental, Peter thwacked Edmund on the back hard enough to make his brother's wine glass slosh.

"You are such an oaf!" Edmund retorted, pulling away and shaking his hand dry. "Waste of adequate wine, too."

"Plenty more where that came from!" Mary called behind them. She and Miriam were walking together from the house. Miriam had a wine bottle under her arm.

Peter did not see the Lion - or the giant marmalade cat Aslan usually affected when visiting them now - but he felt the warming presence that was not due wholly to imbibing aged Scotch. At that same moment, the animals of the house raised a din. The horses whinnied loudly in the barn, Silenus brayed, and the dogs suddenly burst out from the kitchen back door. Barking ecstatically, the pack tore across the lawns, with the cats running behind them and Bacchus waddling along as rearguard. The dogs and cats all galloped into the wood and jubilant birdsong erupted around them.

Miriam went up to Edmund and plucked the empty wine glass from his hands. "Lucy says Aslan heard you; he's waiting."

"I can see that, but thank you all the same," Edmund replied. "I shall have to ask him to send our family pets home again, and before they all end up covered in pond slime." He and Miriam bent their heads together and walked away, toward the wood. They stopped at the head of the path into which the dogs and cats had gone. A soft, warm light beckoned deeper in the trees. Miriam kissed her husband on the cheek and Edmund walked forward and disappeared into the glowing, golden wood.

Mary sighed and shivered. Peter put his arm around her and pulled the ever-present cardi up over her shoulder. Mary was always cold now and, though she did not say, he knew its cause and what it meant.

They watched as Miriam poured into Edmund's glass wine from the bottle she carried and leaned against a beech. She would wait for Edmund to return.

"Are you going to go with Edmund and speak to Aslan?" Mary asked.

"Not today. I bespoke him before the Investiture." It had been a joy, to need nothing, ask for nothing, but only to give thanks to the Lion for his gifts.

Mary snuggled closer under his arm. "You feel very warm today, like a bonfire."

"Probably the Scotch."

She inhaled sharply, almost a wince. "What on earth!"

"Mary?" he asked, now worried at her sudden exclamation. It wasn't...

Mary turned under his arm to face him. "You're glowing, love, the way Asim used to see you, see you all."

"I am?" Peter stared down at his own jacketed arm. "Really? I don't see anything!?"

"Just like a bloody torch." Mary shielded her eyes with a hand and squinted. "Oh my, yes, I can see why this would cause a headache if there were a lot of you together. Thank goodness for small miracles."

She dropped her hand, looked askance, and scowled. "That _Cat_! He's done it on purpose! He knows I've wanted to see you glowing _forever_. He's trying to make up for not ever letting me into Narnia!"

Peter pulled her closer. "As further recompense for that omission, I was thinking we should go back to Disney World for our anniversary?"

"It is the closest I shall ever get to going down a rabbit hole," Mary grumbled.

"But you can go to Wonderland and Neverland as many times as you are willing to queue up for the rides."

She did brighten at the prospect. "Will you go on the Jungle Cruise with me?"

"The last time I went on a Magic Kingdom boat, we had to be evacuated from Small World," Peter replied. The song had not left his head for a week. _No boats._

Mary looked again at Miriam; Edmund had not yet returned from his talk with Aslan. She pulled her cardigan closer and crossed her arms. "Peter, I have a terribly important question for you."

"Yes?" Given the direction of her searching gaze, he could guess the query.

"At lunch, Edmund said he was not at your first knighting."

His wife had a thirst for inquiry but in this it was not his place to enlighten her. "I'm afraid that the reasons behind Edmund's toast are his own. I'm sorry, Mary, but it is not my..."

"...story to tell," Mary finished. "Yes, Peter, I understand that. My question was not about Edmund. I'm sure I've heard you say that Aslan knighted you? With Rhindon?"

"Yes. He told me to never forget to clean my sword and he knighted me into his order."

Mary frowned and made a skeptical _hmmmm _sound of disbelief.

"It was _my _knighting, Mary. Even in my aged state, I've not forgotten it. Lucy and Susan were there as well."

"I asked them already. They didn't know either."

"Know what?"

A breeze moved through the trees; deeper in the wood they could hear the dogs barking. A birch leaf fluttered down and landed in Mary's hair, like his, it was gray now, not blonde. Peter gently removed the leaf and twirled it between his fingers.

She stared down at the leaf and frowned. "He's a lion. I saw him in the wood that night."

"You did indeed," Peter said evenly and squeezed her hand. He always had to affirm that first act of her witness to Aslan for he'd believed Mary no more than he'd believed Lucy the very first time. He had thought himself so important and had refused to accept that Aslan would ever show himself to Mary and not to his High King. Mary had long since forgiven him but it was a lesson in trust and humility he never forgot. "He is the Lion, but we've seen him as the Cat as well, of course."

She looked into his eyes and then winced and muttered _ouch, bloody torch._ "Precisely. He's a lion, or a cat. A _feline_."

His wife was being uncommonly thick about taxonomy. "I think we can agree on this, yes."

"So how did he knight you?"

Her question brought him up short and he dropped the leaf.

"What?"

"How. Did. He. Knight. You?"

"I understand the question, Mary. I just..." Peter paused and amended, "actually, I don't understand your question. What do you mean?"

Mary gripped his shoulders; her eyes were bright with the same dogged, maniacal purpose that had led to stone gryphons, cannibal dinosaurs, his standing for election in the House of Commons, and decades of constituency services. "Peter, how could Aslan have possibly knighted you with Rhindon? Felines don't have grasping hands or opposable thumbs! How could a lion hold a sword? He doesn't have a prehensile, grasping tail, does he? I'm sure I would have noticed. He's whacked me with it before. Does he have an extra digit, like a panda?"

Peter opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He was utterly flummoxed.

"See what I mean? It's inexplicable!" She grabbed his hand. "I _have _to know! Let's go ask him!"

It seemed that Aslan anticipated Mary's query and the proposed examination of the anatomy of his forepaws. Just as she was ready to hare off to find the Lion, they were bowled over by the return of the household dogs and cats who burst out from the wood, soggy, rank-smelling, and drenched in pond scum.

* * *

A huge thanks, again, to Oldfashionedgirl95 and Starbrow for their support through this. Also, a special thanks to Adaese and Ipogod who first gave me the ideas about the Chagoss Islands, Edmund's possible reluctance to accept a Knighthood, and general information about the British Honours and Awards.

The British Honours system was difficult and I watched a lot of video, searched through old _Gazette_ listings, and researched New Year's lists and news articles. I did find an article from December 31, 1992 identifying that year's New Year's Honours and borrowed some of its discussion. The particular nasty quality of the fake editorial is, however, all my own though it borrows from the Sun's role in political events in the UK in 1992: the general election; the infamous headline, "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights"; and "Now we've all been screwed by the cabinet" in reference to Black Wednesday on 17 September 1992 and the withdrawal the British pound sterling from the European currency exchange.

If there is something that seems off to you, please drop me a line, and I'll see if I can fix it.

Thank you so much to those of you who read and reviewed. I really appreciate it.


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